


Brief Encounters

by innie



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Three brief encounters between characters we haven't really seen together onscreen.  Empathy is the name of the game here.
Relationships: Howie (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist) & Abigail (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist), Howie (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist) & Max Richman, Maggie Clarke & Autumn (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist), Maggie Clarke & Max Richman, Maggie Clarke/Mitch Clarke, Mitch Clarke & Max Richman, Tobin Batra & Jessica Hamilton, Tobin Batra & Max Richman
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	1. Maggie + Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> 1 - When are we getting renewal/cancellation news, seriously? I just started thinking about gen pairings I'd like to see if there is a second season and started writing. This is the f+f one. One m+f and one m+m pairing coming up!
> 
> 2 - Okay, so we're getting a second season! This encounter is the one that kick-started the idea in my head. I just really want to see these two get to know each other.
> 
> 3 - I really miss these characters.

How long had she been sitting on this bench, looking out at the water, watching the light dance along the ripples, and knowing it meant nothing now? She closed her eyes but couldn't keep the sun's warmth from soaking into her skin and painting the insides of her eyelids red. Her feet ached and her butt was numb. She didn't care what the wind was doing to her hair, but her hands were getting cold, even in the pocket of the old sweatshirt she was wearing, sitting so still and thinking about all she had lost.

There was a gentle touch on her shoulder and a soft voice said, tentatively, "Are you okay?" Oh, so she must have started crying again. Maybe she'd never stopped. Maybe she'd been wailing her grief all over San Francisco. "Ma'am?"

She smiled before she could help herself, remembering the first time she'd been called _ma'am_ — she'd left the pharmacy in a daze, gone home, and told Mitch, and he'd grinned that wicked grin and fucked her up against their bedroom wall. "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am," he'd said, and she'd laughed, kissed the knuckles he'd scraped when he'd put his hand between her skull and the wall, and never worried again about how old anyone thought she was.

Maggie dried her cheeks and opened her eyes to see a pretty blonde girl — no, she was about Zoey's age, so a _woman_ , older than she'd been when she'd met Mitch — looking at her with concern. The late afternoon light and the wind were doing amazing things to her hair, but she'd have been beautiful regardless, given the kindness in her expression. "I will be, thank you. Would you like to sit?" She turned automatically to move her purse off the other side of the bench and remembered she'd walked out of the house that morning with nothing but her housekeys stashed in the pocket of Mitch's old sweatshirt. She'd walked for hours, no clear destination in mind, and hadn't had a bite to eat all day. She couldn't remember how she'd ended up on this bench, unfocused eyes seeing only Mitch in everything around her; he'd loved this city so much.

"Sure, okay," the woman said, cautiously cheerful. "This is where I usually sit to watch the water." She set down a brown paper bag that said _Golden Gate Grind_. "I'm Autumn, and if you knew me, you'd know I have a reputation for being a drink savant, _and_ my infallible sixth sense is telling me that you need this way more than I do." Out of the bag came a giant disposable cup, the lid of which Autumn removed before wafting the whole thing under her nose.

"Oh, I couldn't," she said, but the sugar smelled so good and she was only now growing aware of how her head was pounding.

"Made it myself, so I know it's good," Autumn wheedled, and Maggie smiled and took the gift.

The first sip was heavenly, sweet and comforting, and she said, "Oh, this is so good!"

"It's a Blueberry Bliss Bomb, for days when you feel blue and want to make blue a good thing instead." Autumn waved out at the water.

"So what's got you feeling blue?" She hadn't made a friend in such a long time, but she thought she remembered the steps.

"Nothing. Everything. The journey just keeps going on. Knowing that I'll be okay but I'm not there yet." Autumn had an amazingly expressive face, and hope and sorrow and rueful candor all flashed across it. Maggie marveled at her openness; neither of her kids had ever liked talking about their feelings, and a conversation like this would have been like pulling teeth with them.

She stretched an arm out and hugged Autumn around the shoulders, squeezing once before letting go. "You will be. Sooner than you think."

"How do you know?" At that moment, Autumn looked younger than ever, and Maggie knew for a certainty exactly what she'd looked like as a child.

"Look how kind you've been to an old lady, to a stranger," she said. "That light inside you will see you through."

Autumn shook her head and went self-deprecating in a way that reminded Maggie strongly of Max, who shied away from praise like it might conceal a weapon. "A light?" Autumn joked, knocking on her own head. "Is this thing even on?"

Maggie drained the cup — she'd have to remember to start buying blueberry tea — and set it down between them. "It's on, and you're a gift. Thank you."

Autumn smiled, wide and bright. "Back at you." She stood, dusting off her jeans and collecting the empty cup and bag, then held them up to show off the logo. "Come say hi when you get a chance."

"I surely will," she promised, waving goodbye and giving the water one last long look before she got to her own feet. Considering what flower would match what she knew of her new friend — debating with herself between pink rosebuds, purple clematis, and red ranunculus — occupied all the time it took to walk the miles home. She turned the key in the lock and stepped into a silence, still raw, that bowed her head down. 

No. She picked her head up and smiled. She'd go tomorrow, and she'd bring all three.


	2. Tobin + Jessica

In times of crisis, Tobin sought established comforts, and to an immigrant child with overprotective and struggling parents, a library was as good a place to call home as any. He remembered being ten years old in a brand new country, not a single friend to his name, and sitting for hours in the library branch closest to his mother's office, frantically going through an American dictionary and trying to extract all the extraneous _u_ 's and opening vowels from the vocabulary he'd learned from the reassuringly thick volumes of _The Oxford English Dictionary_ he'd had in Mumbai, a birthday present from his grandfather. It wasn't _oesophagus_ in America, it was _esophagus_ (from the Greek _oisophagos_ , meaning "gullet").

He wanted the comfort of the OED now, while he thought about what he'd done. He'd _gotten Max fired_. What the fuck?

So, okay, he hadn't been in on Leif's plan to go up to the sixth floor and subvert the bake-off from within, but he'd been a willing participant, an eager conspirator, because it was _Leif_ 's plan and he stood by his friends. Well, friend, singular. Max was just a dude he worked with, though possibly the best straight man Tobin had ever had; he was so focused on Zoey (which, whaaat? why carry a torch for a chick who treated you like her brother?) that he said things that Tobin could mock, in, like, eight different ways without even thinking about it. If he ever did make the move to stand-up comedy, he'd want Max to be in the audience, all goofy and enthusiastic and sincere.

But Max hadn't known about the plan, and he was the one who'd been let go because he supposedly somehow _should_ have known, and now Tobin had to live with the idea that he'd separated Max from Zoey and cost him a job he was actually good at, and _his_ fun had consequences (other than prison) for _other people_ , and he _really_ needed to find the reference section in this stupid sprawling library and reacquaint himself with his pet words before he started hyperventilating.

He turned a corner and finally saw both what he was seeking — the long row of dark spines, orderly as a phalanx of soldiers — and an unexpected bonus: right in front of the unabridged dictionary there was a girl of unim _peach_ able hotness sitting in the spotlight of the sunbeam coming right through the fancypants skylight. Getting to the OED meant he had to talk to her, even if it was only to ask her to let him squeeze by, and he knew he could make it the dirtiest squeeze of all time because he wasn't one to let an opportunity this choice slip.

A couple steps closer and he could see that Princess Hotness was staring blankly at the pages of an oversized tome on architecture and that she looked kind of familiar. That ping of recognition threw him off-kilter, because he had his mind organized to function like the best little black book of all time, and yet he couldn't come up with a name for the woman in front of him. Maybe she was a model? Except, no, because then she wouldn't be looking up — startled out of her reverie by his approach, which _might_ have resembled a charging bull's gait — and making that where-have-I-seen-this-dude-before face.

She recognized him too. She was not a dream that had come to life in a _Weird Science_ situation. This was not a drill.

It looked like she couldn't tell if he was coming at her or the shelf behind her, and to be fair he hadn't decided which way he was going to zig either. At the last second, he veered off to the reference books, but she didn't let him get away with that. "Excuse me," she said, "but don't I know you?"

The accent was what jogged his memory. This was Jessica, Simon's ex, and seriously, _what_ was the dude smoking if he'd ditched all of this for a twitchy redheaded weirdo who could fit into his pocket?

Up close, she was even more of a raging smokeshow, tired as she seemed. "Uh, yeah, I'm Tobin, I work . . . at SPRQpoint," he said, narrowly avoiding naming her ex-fiancé. It was weird, wasn't it, that Simon hadn't brought her to the SPRQwatch launch party, or to any of the other social events, when he was in _marketing_ and should have understood the benefits of having a hard ten on his arm.

"Were you at the epic debacle masquerading as an engagement party?" she asked, even managing to smile a little, and shit, she had dimples and he had a weakness for foxy ladies who managed to be super cute and super hot at the same time like it was no big.

"I was, and your hors d'oeuvres game was righteously tight." Credit where credit was due; he hadn't eaten that well in a long time.

She looked surprised by the compliment or maybe that he was talking about food when she was braced to hear something about being better off without a guy who didn't appreciate her. She _was_ , but that wasn't his comfort to offer her.

"My friend did the catering; I'll have to tell him it went over so well. Please," she said, gesturing at the chair opposite hers.

"One sec," he said, "let me just grab what I need." He scooped up the row of volumes — he was _so_ secret buff — and deposited them on the heavy wooden table and sat. Upside down, he could see that the tome in front of her was open to a photograph of the very same skylight they were sitting under. "You are, like, _effortlessly_ meta right now," he told her.

She looked down at the page, looked up at the skylight, and then over at his stack of books. "What are you up to?"

"Short version: I spent a lot of time reading the dictionary when I was a kid —"

"Spelling bee?" she guessed.

"You too?"

She shook her head, smiling a little more broadly. "Insufficiently intellectual."

"Nah, bet you just had better things to do."

She grinned at him. "Sorry, I interrupted you."

That grin threw him and suddenly he wasn't sure about confessing the depths of his nerdery to a girl who could smile like that at him. Not that he could think of any way to explain the OED fixation other than the truth. "And I found one special word in each volume that was _mine_ , like a pick-me-up." Those words had been a little treat to turn to when the letters started dancing in front of his overtired eyes, reassuring in their steadiness, like guideposts in the vastness of the dictionary's contents.

He could see her trying to make sense of what he said. "How did you pick them?"

"Sometimes the sound, sometimes the meaning, sometimes just the way they looked on the page."

She tilted her head, thoughtful. "And you need all of them, all in a row?"

"Yeah, rockin' the whole litany. Why?"

She shook her head and sat back. "No, nothing."

He held up his hands. "No judgment."

"It's like a good twist on the Winter Soldier programming," she said, looking at him like what he thought of her mattered.

He'd never once in his life made that connection. "That," he said, puffing out his chest and inviting her to laugh, "makes me sound way more badass than I have ever been. Bucky is the _man_."

"I so want to know if he's going to be in the Black Widow movie."

"Awesome, twisted love story," he agreed. "Not that she can't kick ass all on her own. I am _there_ opening night." He looked over at her bright and eager face. "Want to join me?" A memory hit him then, of Max saying something about Cap and Bucky having the best relationship in the MCU. Maybe he should invite Max too, start making shit up to him.

"As long as you're not secretly stanning Agent Coulson," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Creepy McWhitebread? Nah, son."

She laughed. "Could . . . would you mind showing me your words?"

He hadn't shared them before, and who knew what she'd be able to read into them, like they were his DNA, spelling out the genes that added up to the disappointing mess he'd become. "What's up with your book?" he asked, buying himself a little time.

Her voice got a little quieter. "I moved here without knowing anything about the city, and I wanted to change that. This library is a major tourist attraction, did you know that?"

"Are you looking for a tour guide?" he offered. He knew how to read tone, even when it was coming out of a distractingly hot mouth, and there was no reason at all for her to feel like a failure just because her ex had been unwilling to appreciate her.

"Maybe," she said, lifting her chin. Beyond being insanely hot, she was a fighter, and he wasn't going to say no to her.

He opened each volume in turn, finding and smiling down at the words that had bolstered him for so long. He stacked them, the volumes thick enough to find their balance easily, and pointed at each word as they made their way down the stack. She flinched a little at _aeipathy_ (continued passion) but evidently liked _chrestomathic_ (devoted to the learning of useful matters) and _jentacular_ (pertaining to breakfast) and the rest. When they'd strung together the litany, she looked again at _felicificability_ (capacity for happiness) and spoke the word out loud, like a lucky charm. He didn't mind sharing after all.


	3. Howie + Max

His phone was a piece of shit, clearly, and now he was stuck with a drained battery when he was fifteen minutes from Abby's first intercontinental video call. Ten in the morning on a Wednesday, nowhere near home, and he was going to miss his kid's call. Why _wouldn't_ it start raining?

He ducked into the closest open doorway to get out of the rain and realized he'd stumbled upon a little independent coffeeshop, staffed entirely by kids Abby's age, all dressed in hemp layers. Maybe one of them would have a charger he could borrow. He let them upsell him on a cranberry scone to go with his tea, but not only was there no charger that would fit his ancient phone's charging point, but there was no free table. He looked around, feeling like a kid in a school cafeteria, hoping someone would look up and meet his eye.

One guy did. Young, maybe seven years older than Abs, with dark eyes that widened in surprise at recognizing him. That involuntary response made him look more closely — not a recovered patient, not a patient's relative, maybe a neighbor of one? Someone he might have seen taking out the trash or mowing a lawn? 

The guy looked around the shop, saw his problem, and beckoned him over. "You can sit here if you're looking to stay."

"Thanks," he said, setting down his stuff and peeling off his supposedly waterproof jacket.

"You're Howie, right?" the guy said, and that was when it clicked. This was the kid who'd shown up on the last awful night, looking like his heart was breaking along with everyone else's that Mitch was done fighting. "I'm Max."

They shook hands around Max's open laptop. "Howie, yeah, nice to meet you." Max smiled at him. "Don't let me interrupt you, but you don't happen to have a charging cord for this bad boy, do you?" He held up the phone with only a faint hope.

"No, but you could use mine if you need to make a quick call?" Max held out a much sleeker looking device. 

He shook his head, warming his hands around his Earl Grey. "Thanks, but I don't think that'll work — I need to make a video call to Kenya and my hands have to be free." His phone had a case with a little kickstand, but Max's didn't, and he needed both hands to say all the things he needed to say to Abs.

Max paused for a moment, then swiveled his laptop around. "Use this, then; it's not going anywhere." He reached around and poked a few buttons, then turned the laptop back so he could see the screen. "Probably should have opened the program before offering it to you," he said, self-deprecatingly.

It was the same SPRQpoint program that Zoey had installed on his phone, but of course Abs wasn't in Max's contacts. And she wouldn't answer a call coming from SPRQview user _MRblue_. "Actually, could I get your phone too, just for a sec? Trade you the scone for it." Max unlocked it and handed it back over, and Howie saw that he was already five minutes late for the call. He texted Abby: _Abs, phone trouble. Borrowing laptop — pick up when MRblue calls. Dad._ Out of the corner of his eye, he registered that Max hadn't touched the paper bag. "Hey, I meant it about the scone. It should go great with your —" He couldn't even begin to guess what was in Max's cup.

"The words you're looking for are 'turmeric latte,' and it's better than it looks. Plus I already scarfed down a honey doughnut." Max turned the laptop again and Howie searched for _Absinthe_ and opened a call.

Abs looked great — happy, healthy, and _safe_. He started to tell her so, just barely remembering not to speak aloud the words he was signing since he was in a public place, but she interrupted to ask: _whose laptop?_ He waved it off but she persisted: _who's MRblue?_

_A friend. No jetlag?_

_Show me._ Ever since he and Lauren had split up, Abby had been pushing him to find a new partner. He wondered sometimes if she was doing the same to her mother or if Laur had been spared the meddling; he hadn't thought he'd miss it so much when Abs stopped talking to him altogether.

He glanced away from the screen to look at Max, who was doing something on his phone and clearly trying to give him some privacy, as much as possible when they were at a tiny two-top table. "Hey, you mind waving hello to my kid?"

Max looked up, surprised. "Sure." He got up and stood to face the screen and waved, pointed at himself, and fingerspelled _M-A-X_. He shrugged, said under his breath, "That's literally all I know how to do," and waved at Abs again before sitting back down.

_Happy now?_ Howie signed, directing it at Abby's smirk.

_You've got good taste in guys, Dad,_ she responded, the little stinker. _And yes, I'm jetlagged, but it's so beautiful here, and the kids are so into what we're teaching them, and the food is unbelievable._

_If you're happy, I'm happy,_ was all he had time to say before a light started flashing on her end, drawing her attention.

_Sorry, got to go, team dinner,_ she said, and his heart sank. They'd barely had five minutes together. But when he blew her a kiss, she blew one back.

He ended the call and closed the program before swiveling the laptop back to face Max. "I really appreciate this," he said. He broke off one corner of the scone and washed it down with a sip of milky tea.

"I'd been wanting to say thanks for all you did for Mitch," Max said, closing the laptop lid.

"Man, could that guy play poker," he said, and Max laughed.

"So tell me about your kid."

"Her name's Abby," he said, making the name-sign they'd created all those years ago. It looked a lot like the sign for _rainbow_ , and over Max's shoulder he could see through the plate-glass window that the sun had come out.


End file.
